Baselight contrast

[Emily Haine]

I'm just getting used to Baselight and trying to understand how things works. When adjusting the contrast in FilmGrade it looks like it doesn't "roll off the shoulder". Is that correct?  I know I can "slide the curve" with the pivot in the Highlights and Shadows controls but with FilmGrade it feels like simply lifting the whites and dropping the blacks. 

EM

[Andy Minuth]

Yes that behaviour is correct, Emily.

FilmGrade is intended to be used with a DRT / LUT in the output path which takes care of the shadow/highlight roll-off. 
I explained the origins of the different grading tools in the first half of my BaseGrade article.

If You are looking for an Exposure / Contrast tool with built in highlight / shadow roll-off within Baselight, You should try out 'Technical Grade'. But please be aware that 'Technical Grade' clips the signal at 0 and 1 without the possibility to recover it in a downstream layer. So if You add too much contrast before, You might loose some part of Your signal.

[Emily Haine]

Thank you so much Andy!

[Soumitra Sarkar]

Hi! Andy , At first I want to thank for such type of Video grade, film grade and also Base grade describing.

I had just use Base Grade, I think its cool and it's change the Gradeing history. But I am little bit confused when I read your conclusion para, You wrote In Base Grade scene setting is so important without poper scene setting Base grade are not work properly. I want to know what is the poper scene setting.

Basically In India, Kolkata, we all are used to grade footage upon flat log Image. We can't do grade in linear space. Its my mental problem andalso our client are not satisfied to seeing like this procdure grading. 

Baselight authorise colorist said that the scene setting  must are for Base grade,  Viewing colour space -DCI P3 and Grading colour space -Filmlight T log and the DRt Truelight T gamut.But in this setting are footge are showing linear and I can't Do my grading in such type of linear footage.

Is there any setting for Base Grade keeping footage in Flat log image

I just loved the Base Grade......Please help me..

[Andy Minuth]

On 02/12/2017 at 7:17 PM, Soumitra Sarkar said:

...

Is there any setting for Base Grade keeping footage in Flat log image

Hi Soumitra,

it makes me happy to hear, that You like BaseGrade. What You are describing is Telecine Style grading. 

Generally I would recommend You to exercise scene-referred film-style grading. 

The scene settings for that would look like that:

• Input CS: Defined by You footage, e.g. ARRI LogC WG
• Working CS: Your preferred scene-referred space, e.g. Filmlight T-Log / E-Gamut or ARRI LogC WG
• Grade Result: From Stack
• Display / Render CS: Your target display, e.g. Rec.1886, DCI XYZ, DCI P3, etc.
• DRT: Choose one that suits Your artistic and technical needs, e.g. Truelight CAM

I know it is hard for a colourist to switch the style especially on an important job. But in the long run, it is worth it. With the arrival of HDR displays and multiple deliveries, the telecine style heads into a dead end kind of. Additionally You could add a reduction of contrast as a first layer (set to 'No Bypass'), to show the client a washed out image in the beginning of the grade.

 

Having said that, BaseGrade can also be used in a Telecine style scene. Best practice for that looks like that:

Use the same colour space settings as mentioned above. But then insert a 'Colour Space' layer to the stack, set to 'Identify Colour Space' and the colour space You are manually grading into, e.g. Rec.1886 or DCI 2.6 Gamma / D60. Your image will then look wrong (washed out) as desired. The important thing is then to put the Colour Space layer at the right point in the stack. Usually Your grade will start with adding a lot of contrast to the washed out image. As soon as the image brightness and contrast look okay on the display, the necessary colour space conversion is finished. After that layer You should put the 'Identify colour space operator'. Basically it tells BaseLight that before that operator, the image is in Log colour space, and after it, it is in Display Colour space (e.g. Rec.1886). I attached a picture that shows how the stack might look.

BaseGrade will then work 'correct' on the image. Please note that most of the new tools in Baselight 5 like 'Boost Shadows', 'DeNoise', etc. are colour space aware and work best with correctly tagged colour spaces.

Happy grading, Andy

 

[Soumitra Sarkar]

Thanks, Andy

I understand your settings. Basically In Bl5 , I set the scene setting as you said. But problem is that I have to grade most project which lots of multi camera footage in a same scenes e.g arri, red, sony and dpx. For that I set my scene    input colorspace " no conversion".

After that my scene contain shot are looking too much contrast and to my saturated. Basically all red footage are looking to bad contrast and clip the shots highlights.

Andy, Is that ok or not..I want to grade in HDR and I am happy to grade in BL 5 If all are ok. 

I can use the below scene setting ?

• Input CS: No Conversion
• Working CS: Your preferred scene-referred space, e.g. Filmlight T-Log / E-Gamut or ARRI LogC WG
• Grade Result: From Stack
• Display / Render CS: Your target display, e.g. Rec.1886, DCI XYZ, DCI P3, etc.
• DRT: Choose one that suits Your artistic and technical needs, e.g. Truelight CAM

 

 

 

[Andy Minuth]

Generally speaking: Especially when You are using several different input colour spaces, it makes sense to tag Your footage correct. I recommend You to use the 'Automatic' setting or set it manually per clip for transcoded footage. All the footage will then be matched to one log flavour (your working CS) and grades can be reused much easier.

For Your specific case, I ask You to solve it with the BaseLight support baselight-support@filmlight.ltd.uk. Then we can have a detailed look at Your scene and help You solve all the issues.